The Tempered Radical

Tired of Being the Nation's Punching Bag

So I’m completely hacked off tonight.

You see, I’ve spent a few hours wrapped in the criticisms of public schools found in the first pages of The Global Achievement Gap, Tony Wagner’s bit on how schools need to change if our kids are ever going to survive in tomorrow’s world.

Wagner—like many of the educational, political and business leaders who chime in on the “crisis” in public education—fills his preface with the kind of “sky-is-falling” rhetoric that dominates most of today’s #educonversations.

Now, maybe I wear my emotions on my sleeve, but I took Wagner’s criticisms personally and I felt attacked.

You can understand that, can’t you?  I mean attacking teachers HAS become a part time job for many politicians and pundits after all.

Worse yet, I felt like a few of Wagner’s teacher-centered criticisms were just plain misdirected.

Here’s a few specific examples—followed by my reflections as a full-time practitioner.

Are YOU Making PLC Expectations and Behaviors Clear?

Crista Anderson---a K-12 Instructional Literacy Coach with Missoula County Public Schools---recently whipped up one of the best visual organizers of the work done by collaborative teams that I've ever seen.

Check it out here.

After I shared Crista's graphic on Twitter, we both received a bit of friendly push-back in a series of tweets from Jason Lobdell, a high school teacher in Arizona who wrote:

"Must collaboration between engaged educators become this complicated to be legit? My issue with PLCs. 

My PLC experience has been that we now spend as much/more time documenting collaboration as collaborating.

Reflective educators collaborate deliberately as a matter of course; systematization of that brings its own problems."

Sadly, I've worked in enough PLCs to know that Jason's point is legitimate times ten. 

There really ARE a ton of schools attempting to overly structure the work of collaborative teams, introducing a level of mechanical-ness to PLCs that is entirely uninspiring and a level of systematization that can be entirely stifling to real innovation.

Cale Birk recently wrote about his own efforts to find the right loose-tight balance with his own PLCs. 

But I've also worked with enough PLCs to know that there are a bunch of teachers who simply aren't "collaborating deliberately as a matter of course."

Sure, they're meeting weekly. 

But meeting weekly and collaborating deliberately are two entirely different things. 

Heck, if I'm being perfectly honest, it took me YEARS to recognize the full range of collaborative tasks that highly functioning PLCs really ought to be engaged in. 

The knowledge of process that is so well detailed in Crista's visual was hard-won and only discovered as I read more and wrote more and stumbled across opportunities to interact with folks like Rick and Becky DuFour.

I think that's why Crista's visual resonates with me as much as it does. 

It clearly articulates the kinds of action steps and tangible behaviors that PLCs are supposed to be embracing---and by clearly articulating these action steps and tangible behaviors, it helps to ensure that everyone is investing time and energy in the RIGHT places.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Bradley Staats and David Upton examined the role that such clarity plays in the super efficient and highly celebrated Toyota Production System and then worked to draw conclusions for workers in knowledge based professions like education. 

They write:

“The key is to challenge the assumption that all knowledge is inherently tacit...A major benefit of specifying repeatable processes is that knowledge workers are then freed up to focus on the parts of the job where they can create the most value.”  (p. 7)

Basically, what I'm arguing is that when schools challenge the assumption that all knowledge about collaborative practices and processes is inherently tacit and take steps to clearly define the behaviors and practices of highly functioning teams, we eliminate inefficiencies too. 

Clarity leads to deliberate and productive work for EVERY team---not just the high flying groups in our buildings.

Now don't get me wrong:  Principals that are attempting to structure the work of learning teams CAN and DO go too far, making the process of collective inquiry a rigid experience that encourages obedience instead of innovation.

But it is just as common to see principals who don't go far enough in defining what it is that they expect their teachers to be doing with one another. In those situations, tangible organizers like Crista's can be nothing short of invaluable. 

Does this make any sense to all y'all? 

More importantly, what steps are you taking to clarify the essential behaviors that are a part of collaborative work in YOUR learning community?

 

60 Second Book Hooks [Activity]

A few weeks back, the language arts teacher on my sixth grade team and I whipped up an enrichment activity for our top performing students.

Called 60 Second Book Hooks, we've asked our students to generate short, persuasive metaphorical reviews of the books that they are reading. 

The rules are pretty simple:  Students have to compare the books that they are reading to unlike concepts, ideas or items.  Both supportive and critical reviews are encouraged.

Our thinking was that 60 Second Book Hooks would require the same kinds of higher-end thinking that we are trying to encourage in the Curiosity Box activity I wrote about a few weeks back. 

More importantly, we figured that our students would get the hang of 60 Second Book Hooks simply because they've had practice with thinking metaphorically already this year.   

So I whipped up a sample of a 60 Second Book Hook---intentionally tackling one of their favorite books in an attempt to spark them into action:

 

 

We had a few students record book hooks this week, but we weren't happy with the audio quality of their final products.  On Wednesday, we have a second group coming up to record straight from our computers, which should improve the quality of our final products.

I'll be sure to share a few samples of what they create.

In the meantime, here are a few handouts that you can use to get a 60 Second Book Hook project off the ground in your classrooms:

60 Second Book Hook Planning Guide

Download Handout_PersuasiveBookHooks

This handout guides students through a step-by-step process for writing persuasive book hooks.  We've already used it with great success with our students. 

 

Instructions for Recording Videos with YouTube

Download Handout_RecordingVideosinYouTube

After originally recording our book hooks with our Flip Cameras, we've decided to record directly in YouTube---which has added a great built-in video recorder and editor over the past year. 

Our thinking is that we will (1). get better audio quality by recording from our laptops and (2). eliminate the hassle of having to transfer videos from our cameras to our computers.

My hope is that the step-by-step directions included in this document will help students to record videos independently.  Independent is always a good thing, right?

Of course, we are also requiring all students who want to record and publish 60 Second Book Hooks to get a signed permission slip from their parents.

It's simply never okay for teachers to allow students to publish content to the web---especially pictures and videos---without parents being aware of what exactly is being shared. 

We're also using our 60 Second Book Hook project as an opportunity to teach students about Internet Safety.  A simple rule of thumb that we like to teach is that students should never pair their images with their names in an online environment at all.  As a result, our kids won't be attaching their names to their book hooks at all.

So whaddya' think?  Is this a project worth pursuing? 

Better yet, how would you improve it?

Exploring Blogs during Silent Reading [Activity]

I don't have a ton of time to write tonight, but I wanted to fill you in on something I'm planning on rolling out on my academic team in the next few months. 

We do a daily sustained silent reading period----30 minutes that rotates from classroom to classroom depending on the day---and we love it.  Our kids fall into a comfortable routine over the course of the year and develop a reading-for-pleasure vibe that is just plain cool.

Having fallen madly in love with my feed reader several years ago---who COULDN'T get behind a digital tool that automatically checks my favorite websites for new content every day and brings updates to one homepage for me---I decided to put together a collection of interesting feeds for my kids to explore:

http://www.netvibes.com/wferriter

Poke around a bit and you'll see sites being written BY and FOR kids. 

There are blogs sharing book reviews and interesting current events.  There are blogs being written by the authors that my kids have fallen in love with, blogs about math and science, and blogs that focus on parts of the world that I want students to know more about.

My plan is to turn handfuls of kids loose on this collection during silent reading sessions.  They'll use our classroom computers and any other Internet connected device that I can rustle up.  I'll probably only have room for 3-5 kids to read blogs each day, but that's a start anyway. 

The only rule that I'll set is that if a student is reading online, he's got to leave at least one comment on content that he's reading.  The way I see it, I want to encourage kids to interact---both with the ideas and individuals that they're exploring. 

That's the real beauty of blogs after all:  It's not just reading.  It's reading together.  It's pushing back.  It's challenging and being challenged all at once. 

To help guide their developing commenting habits, I'm going to print off the following handout and leave it next to every computer on our team:

Download Handout_Blog_Comments

It's chock-a-block full of helpful tips and sets of commenting dos and don'ts.  It's got sentence starters and sample comments.  I figure that if I want kids to be productive contributers to comment sections, I've got to show 'em what productive comments look like, right?

So whaddya' think? 

Should teachers be encouraging kids to read blogs during SSR time?  Is there inherent value in seeing that content is being created by others---and that new digital tools can enable users to have conversations around text?

Anyone else using blogs during their SSR periods?

Anyone got a blog that I should add to my collection of student feeds?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

 

PLC Tip: Finding Time for Collaboration

An interesting email landed in my inbox this week from a private school teacher—we’ll call him Jim—who attended one of my sessions at this summer’s Solution Tree PLC Institutes.

Jim wrote:

One of the main messages I picked up on [at the Institute] was that you need to have the school schedule designed in such a way so that teachers have time to collaborate with one another in order to do this right.

Collaboration couldn't be something extra you did before or after school. My principal seemed to be on board with that while at the conference.

Well...things have changed…In our meeting yesterday, our principal mentioned that we probably wouldn't be able to alter the schedule for next year. She mentioned that we would have to "find the time elsewhere."

Any advice?

Anyone who has worked to see their school transition from a traditional structure to a professional learning community is nodding their heads right now, right?

The simple truth is that there is always going to be tension around collaboration in new professional learning communities simply because teachers still have a TON of individual work to do.

Add new team meetings on top of traditional-yet-essential tasks like planning, grading, answering emails and doing hallway duty and we buckle, y’all.

Luckily, there are a few practical steps that both Jim AND his principal can take to make the time challenge more manageable.

Here’s three.

Google's Redesigned Related Searches Feature

I haven't hidden the fact that I was a HUGE fan of Google's Wonder Wheel---a quirky feature hidden under the More Search Tools link that took broad topics and broke them down into visual webs highlighting related subtopics for researchers.

In fact, I dedicated an entire section of my tech book---Teaching the iGeneration---to the tool, figuring that it was SO good, Google would never get rid of it. 

And then they got rid of it. 

#justmyluck

Understanding that breaking broad topics into more manageable and meaningful subcategories while researching new topics on the web is an essential skill for my sixth grade students, I've spent the past few months looking for substitutes to the Wonder Wheel (see here).

The good news is that Google has recently improved their Related Searches feature in a way that I think will make it a solid substitute for the Wonder Wheel. 

Related Searches---which is currently found under the All Results menu in the left sidebar of a user's web browser---does darn near everything that the Wonder Wheel did: Breaking large topics into smaller subcategories, returning results by subcategory instead of by broader topic, introducing students to intellectual connections that they may never have discovered on their own.

Interested in seeing how I plan to introduce the Related Searches feature to my student researchers?

Then check out this handout:

Download Handout_GoogleRelatedSearches

Not bad, huh? 

My hope is that the step-by-stepness of this handout will (1). help my students to break broad topics that they are unfamiliar with into smaller, more manageable chunks and (2). reinforce the idea that searching on the Internet has to be a systematic---instead of haphazard and scattered---process in order to be worthwhile.

Hope this helps you, too!

________________________________________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Wiki Summarizer: A Wonder Wheel Substitute

Google's Reading Level Search Feature

Do Your Students Know How to Search with a Purpose?

 

 

 

Why Parents Should Care About PLCs and #edpolicies

Let's start with another simple truth:  As Jerry Sternin proved in the rice paddies of Vietnam and as Joan Richardson demonstrated in school after school, the best solutions for local challenges rest in the hearts and minds of local experts. 

That should be great news if you're a parent, a teacher or a local policymaker, right?

Essentially what Sternin and Richardson PROVE is that at least some of the teachers in your schools have the answers to any #educhallenge that all y'all are facing. 

That's no surprise, though, is it.  Knowledgeable and active parents have been fighting to get their kids in the classrooms of THOSE teachers for as long as we've had schools.

If we really want to see our schools succeed, however, we've got to start caring about the kids in EVERY classroom.  It's not enough to know that there are a small handful of fantastic TEACHERS in every building. We've got to make sure that fantastic PRACTICES spread from one classroom to the next.

Here's the hitch:  NOTHING about current #edpolicy efforts---which are largely built around ranking teachers based on the standardized test scores produced by students---encourages teachers to share their practices with one another.

In fact, most of these competitive #edpolicy choices actively DISCOURAGE intellectual sharing between teachers.  Think about it:  If YOUR performance numbers were going to be splattered all over the front pages of the local newspaper, why in the Sam Hill would you want to help SOMEONE ELSE to look better?

Want a painfully honest example of what that looks like in action?

I'm currently working hard to perfect my classroom assessment and feedback practices simply because researchers have proven that heaping cheeseloads of feedback is one of the most important school-level factors influencing student achievement. My sixth grade science colleagues, however, aren't there yet professionally. 

Now, if my practices DO have a tangible impact on student achievement (translation: my kids start kicking a little sixth-grade science heiney), wouldn't you want me to share what I learn with YOUR child's teacher, too?

As it currently stands, there's NO WAY that I'd ever share what I'm learning, though.  Remember, I'm competing against YOUR child's teacher.  Policymakers have decided that publicly sorting and shaming teachers is a surefire way to Race to the Top.

Your kid loses. I win.

Crazy.

That's why I'm so excited about a recent #edpolicy proposal crafted by ten Seattle Metro area teachers known as the Washington New Millenium team.  Having spent the past year studying teacher evaluation and assessment models with the experts at the Center for Teaching Quality, the Washington NMI team has made a powerful recommendation:

Real change in schools depends on our commitment to developing and supporting results-oriented professional learning communities. 

For those of you who aren't professional educators, professional learning communities are nothing more than collaborative teams of teachers who are committed to studying student learning together.

They engage in an ongoing cycle of collective inquiry: Examining areas of weakness in student performance, researching potential solutions, implementing new strategies, collecting and studying results with one another, and planning new courses of action based on what they discover.

The entire process is transparent and public and shared.  Results don't belong to individual teachers; they belong to the entire team. 

The Washington NMI team recommends placing professional learning communities at the center of school accountability efforts because professional learning communities encourage responsible practices.  When collaboration is a priority, best practices are shared.

It makes sense, doesn't it?

Of course it does. 

It's high-time that we STOP thinking about teachers as individuals who are working against one another in isolation and START finding ways to incentivize the kinds of professional sharing that can lead to more productive learning spaces for EVERY child---instead of just those lucky enough to be assigned to the classrooms of our "best" teachers.

By recognizing this truth and arguing that professional learning teams should play a larger role in our #edpolicy choices, the Washington NMI team has given me something to believe in.

More importantly, by arguing that professional learning teams should play a larger role in our #edpolicy choices, the Washington NMI team has taken a step towards ensuring that YOUR children have access to the best instructional practices and professional know-how in your schools.

How can THAT be a bad thing?

 

_____________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Is Racing to the Top Even Possible, Arne?

The Power of Professional Learning Communities

Lessons Learned on Collaboration from One Fat Ox

Building a Professional Learning Community at Work

 

 

Is REAL Formative Assessment Even Possible?

Let me start with a simple, researched-based truth:

Formative assessment—timely feedback gathered and reviewed during the course of a learning experience that serves to 'inform' both teachers AND students and allows for the 'formation' of new learning plans—matters.

Need proof?

Let’s start with the fact that after conducting a meta-analysis of every significant research study on achievement in the past three decades, Bob Marzano believes in formative assessment.

In fact, the conclusions he’s drawn in What Works in Schools suggest that providing students with timely and specific feedback on their levels of mastery can account for percentile gains of anywhere from 21 to 41 points—higher than gains caused by other school-based achievement factors including parent and community involvement, safe and orderly environments, and collegiality in the schoolhouse.

As John Hattie—an educational researcher cited by Marzano in What Works—writes, “The most powerful single modification that enhances achievement is feedback. The simplest prescription for improving education must be 'dollops of feedback.'” (As quoted in Marzano, 2003, p. 37)

But I’m really starting to wonder whether or not effective formative assessment is even possible in the classroom.

Are we REALLY the Antidote? [New Slide]

I came across this fantastic Justin Stortz quote in my Twitterstream the other night:

(click to enlarge)

Download Slide_Antidote

 

Now if you've read the Radical for any length of time, you know that I couldn't agree with Josh's sentiment more.  I've written time and again about the exhaustion I feel at serving as America's punching bag. 

Every time some political clown crows about his or her determination to break education--and by default, us in-the-trenches-teacher-folk---to pieces, it leaves me even more determined to fight back.

But every time that I see stagnant educators pushing traditional instructional practices and resisting any kind of attempt to rethink what teaching and learning should look like in our ever-shifting world, I wonder if we REALLY ARE the antidote that we THINK we are. 

So what do YOU think?

As a profession, do we have the potential to be the influential change agents that Josh speaks of? 

More importantly, are we acting on that potential?  Are working to ensure that ALL of our schools are places of intellectual healing or are we perpetuating structures and practices that do more harm than good?

Do you see public schools as society's antidote?

_________________________________________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Breaking Education to Pieces

Declaring War on Teachers

 

 

Original Image Credit: Student and Teacher by Wonderlane

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/37531816/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Licensed Creative Commons Attribution on September 7, 2011

 

Quote by Justin Stortz, @newfirewithin

http://twitter.com/#!/newfirewithin/status/111200150277468160

More on Teaching Innovation with the Curiosity Box

At the end of last week, I shared a pretty popular bit on a metaphorical thinking activity that I'm introducing to my students this year. 

More than one reader expressed an interest in seeing some examples of the kinds of metaphorical connections that my kids are making between the content that we are studying and the odd objects that we are collecting in our curiosity box.

We started our first curiosity box activity today after finishing a unit on the scientific method.  Here are two of the responses that I've gotten from students so far:

Fancy Doll Case

One of the more challenging objects in our curiosity box was (we think) a round doll case that stands about 18 inches high.  It's got a padded interior made for storing one doll and a smooth outside surface decorated with gold pictures and a gold handle.

 

When a group of two boys chose to use the doll case for their metaphorical connections to the scientific method unit. I was worried that they wouldn't get too far.  Instead, they kind of blew me away with their connections.